Wider Width Lumber

http://www.wrrobinsonlumber.com/wide_pine_flooring.php these folks have 20”

-- Fred, Springfield, Ma

Until just a few years ago it was common in my neck of the woods to get white pine 24 inches or wider. There is a good cance that I still have some shorts laying around somewhere.
I am making some of the trime in my house with steamed beach(makes beach red like cherry) and some of the boards were 14 inches or so wide.
I also have a 8 or nine foot 14 inch curly yellow birch board in the garage that will be used in the near furture somewhere in my house.

-- Garry, Engadine, Michigan (Upper Peninsula)

I grew up in a 200 year old house, we had 18” eastern pine floorboards (not all of ‘em were that width, but some were), and a stack of similar width boards in the barn.

I think it’s largely an old growth thing, when you have to turn that forest quickly and are harvesting in under a century there’s no time for the tree to grow to a real thickness.

-- Dan Lyke, Petaluma California, http://www.flutterby.net/User:DanLyke

you can get it custom milled. i know a lumberyard that is on a site with figured maple. they can get you up to like 16” 0r 4” thick if you need it and even wider or thicker is special custom ordered

One clue about the age of the boards, if the growth rings are real close together, it’s probably old growth lumber. You don’t see pine with the close growth rings anymore. The chest could have been made from something else that was taken apart for the lumber.

-- Tim -- http://tmuli.com

I get a lot of my stuff from Steve Wall lumber (http://www.walllumber.com/default.asp)

I recently bought two 24” x 8’ pieces of Mahogany for a blanket chest I’m working on.

-- ...and remember this: there is no more important safety rule than to wear these — safety glasses - Norm Abram

You must remember, that its made of pine, pines grow big, about 6 months ago i was surfacing 4,000 feet of C & D select pine and there was a clear board in there 18”+, and 12ft long, most were 16ft long 10” and wider, as Garry I am also from the Upper Penninsula of Michigan which is big timber country, certain species have tendencies to grow large due to lack of demand/natural tendencies and surrondings.

-- barlow

I get 18-20” poplar boards regularly from our lumber supplier. I wish my planer could handle them full size.

-- The only easy wood project is a fire

I have some chestnut boards that are over 30” wide and up to almost 8/4 thick. The man who cut these died over 50 years before I bought them and I’ve had them for over 10 years. I’m almost out now and little hope of replacing them so I’ve tried to use it sparingly and wisely. but with a few failures… :(
wider isn’t always ‘better’... I have some wide boards pine and cherry that are so cupped they are useless as they are… always something isn’t it? all depends on your purpse I guess.

-- CaptnA - "When someone hurts you, write it in the sand so the winds of forgiveness will scatter the memory... "

Maybe you can find a sawmill close to you ? I have a little list compiled that has help some people. http://nelsonwoodworks.biz/pb/wp_a9976cb4/wp_a9976cb4.html
I regularly mill 24” wide lumber (and occasionally wider) here is some 28” wide 10/4 hard maple I milled just this week, Tuesday to be exact. It was live edge, 25” +/- if I wanted to straight edge it.

-- Urban logger, http://nelsonwoodworks.biz/

I can only mill 24” wide. I rarely do. But it wouldn’t be all that rare for me to mill 12-18”. But I usually turn around and cut these into 6-12” widths.

You need a log ~ 25” (as measured inside the bark) at the small end to yield a 18” cant. It’s fairly common for us to mill this sized (or bigger) log. But I won’t cut extra wide boards unless I see something in the log that tells me it’s the thing to do. Who will buy them? And cupping is an issue. It takes a lot of weight to keep them submissive while drying. I’ve got some larger walnuts to be milled and I will cut them wide. But, unless someone asks for me to cut wide boards I will generally keep them under 12”.

-- Wonderful new things are coming! - God

I’ve seen a few examples of still-virgin forest that escaped the intial logging boom in the nothern midwest – which ran from the 1860’s to early 1900’s depending on how far west you are. And the white pines are amazingly big. In MI there’s Hartwick Pines in the Lower Peninsula and the Estivant Pines up near Garry – just outside of Copper Harbor in the U.P. Mostrous tall, straight trees. And there are some smaller pockets, much smaller, that may have gotten through the logging boom because the terrain was to difficult or wet to get them out.

In all the virgin forests growth rates were slow due to the forest density. Checking the growth rings per inch will tell you if their really old growth. And today large scale logging is more efficiency geared so easier terrain and volume are the benchmarks.

I used to live in WI and tore some 18-21” pine planks off a chicken coop that was built in the 1910 era.